The Hostile Terrains exhibition at UWM explores the ways in which space, policy, and power emerge in and around Milwaukee by drawing attention to the issues of social justice embedded in the material culture and physical environment of our own communities.
As an exhibit connected to Hostile Terrains, “Mapping Reproductive (In)Justice” visualizes the intersecting systems that cultivate a hostile terrain around reproductive health in Milwaukee.
Below, we share a portion of our curator statement:
“Mapping Reproductive (In)Justice” is one part of a story that is focused on Milwaukee, a place with its own hostile terrains impacting reproductive justice. It’s a city where Black infants are three times more likely to die before their first birthday than white infants. It’s a city where pregnant persons face a strong likelihood they will be screened for drug use and prosecuted for “unborn child abuse” under Wisconsin Act 292. It’s a city where children are raised in zip codes whereby their safety, health, and available resources are often racially determined, and where the intersections between community wealth, safety, and resources have a direct relationship with a person’s reproductive health.
This exhibit calls viewers to question the multiple, often unheard and unseen factors situating Milwaukee as a hostile terrain for reproductive justice. As feminist rhetoricians and curators of this exhibit, we present this narrative by drawing on the activist work of SisterSong, a national organization leader in reproductive justice, to visualize the “intersecting oppressions” and “power systems” perpetuating reproductive injustice in our city. To take such an approach requires that we acknowledge our embodied positionality in relationship to this topic. This means we want to make transparent that—as cis, white, women—our orientation to this thematic focus is one by which we occupy a space of privilege. We cannot represent nor adequately account for the lived, reproductive experiences of BIPOC persons in this city. Yet, as women native to Wisconsin and living in Milwaukee, we have witnessed how racial disparities in our city continue to impact the reproductive well-being of many Milwaukeeans. This exhibit aims to tell the story of the systemic intersections perpetuating reproductive injustice in our city and the many organizations actively, yet often invisibility, intervening in this narrative.
The use of maps allowed us to visually represent how these systemic issues are concentrated in specific areas, which are all intrinsically linked to reproductive justice. While the whole story cannot be told simply with statistics and zip codes and maps themselves can be incomplete or inaccurate due to a variety of reasons, noticing patterns can help viewers understand how these interrelated issues come together to produce these results. Other contributing factors that are not represented on the maps include stress levels, which are directly linked to infant deaths, incorrect medical beliefs about people of color (for example, that they have thicker skin or fewer nerve endings than white patients), and environmental factors, including political and medical infrastructures. Embroidered pieces frame the digital maps and anchor the exhibit around the three tenets of reproductive justice as defined by SisterSong: the right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, the right to have children or not have children, and the right to parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.